in baking, cooking, eating, kayaking, reading, running, snowshoeing, traveling, and just being me.

February 09, 2014

Do you sleep onboard? No we are flown in and out by helicopter every day. Yes of course we sleep onboard. On my shipt there are three main decks for crew and staff cabins - A and B and 0. There are some other cabins scattered throughtout the ship was well. My cabin was on deck 1, right in the bow of the boat. Near the engine and the anchor. The majority of staff and crew share cabins.

Do you get the weekend off? No. On the ship I am on Friday, Saturday and Sunday are our busiest days. Friday and Sunday are seadays. We work 9am to 1am. That's a 16 hour day for those of you who can't count. Saturday is debarkation and embarkation day. We dock in Miami around 7am, we usually spend 1/2 hour to an hour in the shop to finish set up from the night before, then our stores arrive around 9am. We get anywhere from 5-15 pallets. They have to be unloaded and distributed to the storage lockers and the shop. That takes a couple of hours. If we are lucky and organised and fully staffed we are done by noon, if not we are done by 130pm. We may have a few hours to get off the ship in Miami and stock up on essentials, use wifi and eat non ship food! Then it's back on board by 3pm. The general emergency drill with guests is around 4pm and then we start in the shops. During the week we don't get days off either. We do get time off. In the shops, we get do get port time off. The shops are tax and duty free so we are not open in ports. Sometimes we have to work - reorganising lockers, or training otherwise we start anywhere between 330pm and 630pm depending on the time we sail. But we are always open until midnight and we usually work another hour after close. A short day is 6 hours, a long day is 16 hours and an average day is 8-10 hours. We average close to 69 hours a week.

Can you hang out with guests? Chat with them, yes. Have an affair with them, no.

Do you eat leftovers? Nope. We have a crew mess, a staff mess and an officers mess. Food is cooked specifically for those areas. We don't eat leftovers from the guest restaurants.

Is there a morgue and gaol on the ship? Depending on the ship, yes. I didn't see either.

What do you wear? Umm, clothes. During work hours I wear a uniform.

Can you use guest areas? Yes as staff we can. There are certain restrictions like time of day, and guests always get priority.

Are you allowed to get off in port? Again yes. Depending on the business needs. If we don't have work to do in the shop or the lockers, yes we can get off in the ports. If it's a tender port we have to wait for the general clearance, which means most of the guests have already disembarked and now it's our turn.

Do you carry margarita watches? Took me a while to work out the guest meant Movado watches.

I had just finished telling a guest that the $10.00 sale was tomorrow, sea day. The guest then asked me if today was B day. SEA day not C day.

How much are the $10.00 watches? I'll let you work out the answer to that one.

I am sure there were many many more but that's all I can think of for now.

February 05, 2014

Last week before I had my hair cut and the 7 months worth of grey roots coloured.

Wasted 10 minutes looking for my name tag before I remembered I don't have to wear it.

Not long after remembering I don't have to wear a name tag anymore I put my lanyard on before I left the house! Seriously it was the same day. Luckily I realised I was wearing it before I actually left the house.

Tried to pay for a beer at the pub with my sail and sign card. Not sure why it was even still in my wallet.

Spent 15 minutes and a lot of swearing looking for my BC care card only to finally realize I don't have one anymore. It's incorporated into my drivers license that I renewed in May 2013.

When the barista at the airport Starbucks asked my name I answered Raquel.

Went to make a phone call and dialed 58 first. (On the ship we had to dial 58 before entering our phone card # to make an outside call).

Greeted an English speaking Canadian friend with Hola, como estas? And wondered why she looked at me weird.

Tried to use my debit card to open the door to my bedroom which doesn't even have a lock on it.

Waking up early, about 630am and thinking there was no point in getting up yet because breakfast didn't start until 7am. Ummm yeah, I'm the only person making and serving my breakfast, I can have breakfast anytime I like. Besides, why was I awake at 630am.

Having a whole double bed to myself, I could sleep spreadeagled across the whole damn thing. But no I continue to sleep in a space about the width of a crew bunk bed.

At a Mexican restaurant in Kansas City they had a beware of Tasmanian Devil sign. How odd!

February 03, 2014

Moho Chocolate was pretty much the only reason we got off the ship and took the world's longest tender ride to shore. Well that and an internet connection.

Moho Chocolate is located right in the port compound - or it's official name is Fort Street Tourism Village. It's between terminal 3 and 4.

They have a small cafe inside, the chocolate factory, and an outdoor bar. Inside you can order hot or cold coffees, milkshakes, tea smoothies and icecream. I had both the Oreo cookie milkshake and the Humble Monkey. So very good. A little on the sweet side, so splitting one milkshake between two people might have been a better idea.

We could have toured the chocolate factory. I think the tour is about $2.00 and you get to make your own chocolate bars. We never actually did this, not sure why. Maybe David or Victoria or Jorge can tell me why we didn't?

We did however enjoy their free samples. Many times over. Sure we could try plain dark or milk chocolate or dark or milk chocolate with almonds. But why would we? Instead we tried the dark/milk with chili, dark/milk with ginger, dark/milk with cocoa nibs, and dark/milk with salt and lime. Can you guess which was my favourite?

Moho Chocolate was established in 2012, and its name is taken from the Moho River Valley in Belize where the cocoa beans are grown. Did you know chocolate is good for you? It is. It helps build a strong immune system, aids digestion, helps with absorption of calcium and makes better bones!

The week before Christmas Jorge and I decided we would finally treat ourselves to a chocolately drink at the bar outside. We had a Moho Buzz. Once upon a time I knew exactly what was in it. I do remember Bailey's, Kahlua and ice being mentioned. It was very, very good.

They had free wifi, so Jorge and I sat and savoured our drinks and facebooked everyone so they could be jealous! Sorry.